Apostrophe: Indicates one or more letters missing in a word, to signify possesive case, or to indicate plurals of abbreviations and symbols.
Personification: the act of applying human nature and characteristics to an inanimate object or non-human character.
Synesthesia: a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.
Hyperbole: obvious and intentional exaggeration.
Understatement: a disclosure or statement that is moderated and has little emphasis.
*Litotes: a figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite, as in This is no small problem.
*Metonymy: a figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated.
*Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is used as the whole, the whole is used as a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it.
Paradox: a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true.
Oxymoron: a rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined.
Allusion: an instance of indirect reference.
Metaphor: A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison.
Simile: A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as.
Implied Metaphor: comparison in which the terms are not explicitly explained
Analogy: a form of logical inference or an instance of it, based on the assumption that if two things are known to be alike in some respects, then they must be alike in other respects.
** Words marked with * are defined here but examples are in the poetry unit.
Personification: the act of applying human nature and characteristics to an inanimate object or non-human character.
Synesthesia: a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.
Hyperbole: obvious and intentional exaggeration.
Understatement: a disclosure or statement that is moderated and has little emphasis.
*Litotes: a figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite, as in This is no small problem.
*Metonymy: a figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated.
*Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is used as the whole, the whole is used as a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it.
Paradox: a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true.
Oxymoron: a rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined.
Allusion: an instance of indirect reference.
Metaphor: A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison.
Simile: A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as.
Implied Metaphor: comparison in which the terms are not explicitly explained
Analogy: a form of logical inference or an instance of it, based on the assumption that if two things are known to be alike in some respects, then they must be alike in other respects.
** Words marked with * are defined here but examples are in the poetry unit.